I ask, because I've been using a P2140, had a P1900 before. At one point (NOT when I first started using the P1900) I got the same symptoms as you in terms of it not holding standby. I battled with it on and off for 5 months, and at this point, I'm 99% positive it is my onboard sound (Realtek HD Audio on my Aopen i945gtt-vfa).

Very nice system, I can tell you are comfortable and know your stuff with 12V car electrical!

Any chance of getting a photo of some parts of your install? I'd like to see how you placed your relays. Are they all next to the particular component or mounted on something together?

I dont currently have any pics of it, but if you are wondering how I found room for everything? I actually built my own case out of 1/4 MDF and part of a Morex 3677. The case has plenty of room to spare. I can still fit the 2140 in there if I wanted to,

Originally Posted by SentraVIP

I think if one setup up his comp for HORM, it will even eliminate the need for shutdown controller.

This is definately a viable solution.

Good stuffs there.

I agree that HORM would work pretty good. At least for my purposes it would. Im not really 100% sure how to set that up. Its something I plan to tinker with in the future. I just have had too much going on to tackle that yet. Plus when I do my next overhaul on the car PC, I want to use a Solid State Hard Drive. So Im sort of waiting for the price of SSD's to come down a bit before I do it.

But I believe you would still need something to "control" shutting down & starting up as well as turning on your amps and stuff.

Originally Posted by S4Per

loginfailed - what type of sound card are you using?

I ask, because I've been using a P2140, had a P1900 before. At one point (NOT when I first started using the P1900) I got the same symptoms as you in terms of it not holding standby. I battled with it on and off for 5 months, and at this point, I'm 99% positive it is my onboard sound (Realtek HD Audio on my Aopen i945gtt-vfa).

So, I'm curious: which sound card are you using?

Hmm thats an interesting thought. Im using the VB7001's on board sound. But I dont understand how the onboard sound would cause that type of problem.

Could you explain why you think that the on board sound causes standby issues? Im not saying I disagree, Im just asking because Im sort of ignorant to a lot of things when it comes to how a computer works. Im more of a car audio nerd than computer nerd if that makes sense, lol.

just becaues of trial and error...somewhere i saw someone post some issues with the realtek stuff in terms of standby and hibernate. i then experimented with using just the OS drivers which made the system stay at 'preparing to standby' forever, i then loaded various drivers and the problem got better but not totally. I then finally disabled the onboard sound in the BIOS, and didn't run into the problem again. I say 99.5% sure, because it has always been intermittent. I did the final test for 3 days without issue.

Im pretty sure my machine is going into standby like its supposed to because I have the screen set to turn off after a 30 second delay so I can actually see the machine shutting down. Plus, if I hook the amp remote to constant, I can hear the thump when the MB shut off the line outs of the sound card.

I may try to get the 2140 running again in the next couple weeks to see if I can isolate the problem. Everything is working really well right now with the current setup.

Only hitch Im having right now is Im running down the second battery. Ive been driving my Civic all week because it gets 35mpg and the Accord only gets 22mpg. With the machine in standby, it eventually drains the second battery.

I wish there was some way to make a unit that would sense the voltage getting low and then wake the PC from standby and initiate a proper shut down. That would be killer. I havent seen anything like that. Im sure it could be done, but I havent really put much thought into how to do it yet. I need to do some brainstorming I guess. The way the 2140 does it is just pull the power when the voltage gets too low (no proper shutdown)

Im pretty sure my machine is going into standby like its supposed to because I have the screen set to turn off after a 30 second delay so I can actually see the machine shutting down. Plus, if I hook the amp remote to constant, I can hear the thump when the MB shut off the line outs of the sound card.

I may try to get the 2140 running again in the next couple weeks to see if I can isolate the problem. Everything is working really well right now with the current setup.

Only hitch Im having right now is Im running down the second battery. Ive been driving my Civic all week because it gets 35mpg and the Accord only gets 22mpg. With the machine in standby, it eventually drains the second battery.

I wish there was some way to make a unit that would sense the voltage getting low and then wake the PC from standby and initiate a proper shut down. That would be killer. I havent seen anything like that. Im sure it could be done, but I havent really put much thought into how to do it yet. I need to do some brainstorming I guess. The way the 2140 does it is just pull the power when the voltage gets too low (no proper shutdown)

I think you could do it using the "wake on lan" or "wake on ring" feature of most motherboards:

Determine when the voltage on the second battery is getting low with the sensor of your choice.

Have the sensor trip an output to the motherboard's "wake on lan" feature, waking the computer from standby

Use the serial port and the UPS power supply features built into windows Xp to trigger a shutdown

...details need to be worked out of course, but I think most of the components are already in place in Windows. [*]

...details need to be worked out of course, but I think most of the components are already in place in Windows.

Yes, those are all ideas I had. I just havent thought about it enough to figure away to make it all work seamlessly.

I remember the old days before I was married with two kids, when I could stay out in the garage ALL weekend with no real worries. If I had that sort of time on my hands, this could be a "how to" rather than an "i wonder how"

I have too many dang projects and not enough time, lol But I guess its sort of self inflicted.